The Recruitment Process is broken. It is ripe for Digital Disruption

As a job seeker in today's world, it is impossible to avoid the maze which is today's recruitment system. As prospective candidates chase jobs, they will find that what stands between them is the gatekeeper of the recruitment consultant, which can more often than not become an impenetrable barrier between you and the hiring manager. The aim of the recruitment consultant is to add value to the process, by filtering out unsuitable candidates. The idea is that only the best candidates are presented to the hiring manager, thus saving time and effort.

However, this whole process has gone very badly wrong – to the point where in many cases (not all), it is not delivering any value to either the candidate or the hiring manager. When you have a situation like this where the customer is no longer king, you have an industry which is ripe for digital disruption.

"This whole process has gone very badly wrong – to the point where in many cases, it is not delivering any value to either the candidate or the hiring manager. "

I was inspired to write this by Sarah.E Taylor's status update "To the recruiters who look over CVs…" which has turned viral and resulted in an outpouring of opinion from both candidates and recruiters alike. The aim of this article is to provide a forum to allow both parties to continue this discussion and to educate those who have been fortunate enough to have avoided this system completely.

As a candidate, no doubt the following has happened to you.

You send a cv into a job board – No Reply

You apply to a job on LinkedIn – No Reply

You go to the trouble of finding the recruiter's email address and send them your cv and a nice covering email – Still No Reply

You phone the recruiter who is busy, so you leave a message for them to contact you – Again, no reply

You are lucky enough to be shortlisted for an interview and your cv has gone through to the hiring manager – but this is the last you hear from the agent

You are lucky enough to be interviewed but the recruiter does not call you back to give you any feedback

On the hiring manager side, the system is also failing:

The candidate cvs do not match the job specifications

A candidate's cv looks amazing on paper but when they are interviewed they fail miserably to live up to this expectation

A candidate's cv is sent through without their consent and when you try to set up an interview, you are unsuccessful

You lose out on an excellent candidate as your agent has not made any effort to look after them so they went for another job instead

In the digital age, where the customer is supposed to be king, a system which is broken has to change. I am very aware that this is a subject which always provokes much anger and negative emotion and this is justified – When you see that your recruiter has enough time to 'like' jokes and post articles on Linkedin but not enough time to update you on your job application, you'd be forgiven for wanting to find the nearest punchbag.

"When you see that your recruiter has enough time to 'like' jokes and post articles on Linkedin but not enough time to update you on your job application, you'd be forgiven for wanting to find the nearest punchbag. "

There is a solution to this which sounds simple enough. Linkedin could add feature which allows candidates and hiring managers to review recruiters just like Trip Advisor or EBay. This would put a stop to these questionable business practices and force guilty parties to up their game. At this point, I'd like to declare that I'm most definitely not against recruitment agents. There are many true professionals out there that I would heartily recommend to anyone and I have made a point in telling them this.

If those of you who agree with me can LIKE this post, then maybe, just maybe we can create a catalyst and positive disruption which puts the humanity back into this system. Recruiters, I would like to hear your views also – it's about time that this debate was opened up properly, once and for all.